Students tend to think they have to spend the most time
on the toughest questions. That’s definitely not the
best strategy, since you get the same credit for easy and difficult
questions. On the PSAT and the SAT II Writing test, for example,
you can skip ALL of the Improving Paragraphs questions and still
score a 670. We’re definitely not suggesting you skip the entire
Improving Paragraphs section. We’re suggesting that you not dedicate
a disproportionate amount of time and energy to
these especially tough questions, since they’ll likely not amount
to more than 15 or 20 percent of your score on the SAT Writing section,
which is less than 10 percent of your entire score. Just as you
should not spend much more time on difficult SAT questions than you
do on easier ones, you should avoid spending more time than necessary
preparing for Improving Paragraphs.